The Ming Dynasty guards could defend Mongolia, but why could they not protect the Jurchens?

The establishment of the Ming Dynasty in 1368 was inseparable from the expulsion of the Mongols from the Central Plains and the implementation of military settlements north of the Great Wall. From the beginning of its establishment until its demise in the 17th century, the Ming Dynasty always attached great importance to northern border defense. . In 1371, Ming Taizu once said that Japan, Korea and Annan were just mosquitoes, and the barbarians in the north were the most dangerous henchmen. To this end, Zhu Yuanzhang established a huge army of 3 million people. They are divided into three parts: the Jingwei, the Twelve Guards and the local guards.

The guard system of the Ming Dynasty

The guard system was founded in Nanjing before Zhu Yuanzhang became emperor and was the most important part of the Ming army. This system was modeled on the imperial military system of the Northern Wei, Sui and Tang Dynasties and absorbed the tribal military system of Mongolia. It was a self-sufficient military camp type. Initially, each sergeant received 15 acres of land to support his livelihood. In 1365, some areas in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River that had been plundered by war were turned into military garrison areas. Each sergeant was given 50 acres of land, provided with cattle and farm tools, and was exempted from land rent and corvee labor. This system enabled the sergeants of various local guards to produce about 300 million kilograms of grain every year during the first 25 years of the Ming Dynasty, enough to support an army of one million, thus enabling the imperial court to maintain a huge border defense force without spending money from the treasury.

The sergeants of the guard station are all hereditary military households whose status remains unchanged, and the officers of the guard station are also hereditary. Therefore, efforts must be made to prevent the relationship between generals and sergeants from becoming too close, and to exercise tight administrative control over the entire military organization. The affairs of each guard are divided into three divisions: the general commanding envoy is in charge of the troops, and there are also the envoys for announcing the affairs and the envoys for punishing and inspecting. The household registration of all military households is managed by the Fifth Military Governor's Office, and the power to mobilize the military is in the hands of civilians in the Ministry of War.

For this elaborate self-sufficient military system to survive for a long time, the quality and obligations of the hereditary military households must be maintained. But in the late 15th century, signs of the system's decline appeared. The nobles and bureaucrats in the imperial court began to force military households to undertake labor services, forcing sergeants to farm and build houses for their private households like serfs, or to collect money from sergeants to avoid military training. Thus, guard officer status became a lucrative position. For a time, businessmen's sons paid large sums of money in bribes to obtain military officer positions to line their own pockets, or to recruit employees in the village into the military to embezzle military salaries. On the contrary, a large number of hereditary military households tried their best to break away from their status as military households because they had been exploited for a long time and could not get military pay. By the 16th century, the number of fugitive sergeants in some guard posts had reached 60% of the total, and the border garrison was only half of its strength.

In the 15th century, the Jurchen tribe was part of the Northeastern Guards of the Ming Dynasty. There was no clear boundary between the Han border people and the Jurchen tribe, so it was inevitable for the two sides to assimilate each other. However, in the 17th century, most of the Han people who immigrated to the Jurchen region were not absorbed into the Jurchen tribe. Instead, they were prisoners of war and became slaves. They were given the name "human animals" and assigned to the Jurchen tribe soldiers as slaves, called "baoyi". This is very different from the situation of the Han people who integrated into Jurchen society in the 15th century. In 1623, Nurhachi ordered that the Han people who joined the Jurchens before 1619 and the Han people who joined the Jurchens later should be treated differently. The former were regarded as Jurchens and incorporated into the Eight Banners system, while the latter became domestic slaves of the Jurchens. With Nurhachi's annexation of Liaodong, the Ming Dynasty's guard system existed in name only in border defense and was replaced by a recruitment system.